Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

available"years'away"Concerningthe New Minister in JapanBy Rev. Samuel E. BoyleIn the last missionary number of The Covenanter Witness Dr. Walter McCarroll called attention to the seemingly hopeless stipulation placed onthe Board of Foreign Missions by Synod's action requiring that, before a new appointment to Japan beallowed, the full budget of $110,815 must be raisedPLUS an added sum of at least $5,000. Dr. McCarrollremarks, "Two candidates for Japan, as reported,have offered themselves. If our past history in budget raising is any guide, then these candidates mayas well resign themselves to the inevitable."Is Failure Inevitable?As the author of a substitute-recommendationwhich replaced the more general one offered with thereport of the Board of Foreign Missions, possibly itmay help for me to explain why I offered such afantastic suggestion, i.e. to make appointment of anew man for Japan contingent on the raising of thefull budget plus another five thousand dollars.It was evident to most of us at Synod that therecommendation of the Board asking permission toappoint a minister to go out to Japan "when fundsarewas going to be voted down. Theurgent appeal of the Home Missions Secretary thatso many home congregations are without a pastor,realization that the church's financialand the heavysupply is annually falling short of present needs,seemed likely to cause Synod to vote down the request.This would have left the Board of Foreign Missions bound helplessly to wait for another whole yearbefore they could again request a minister forJapan. This made me offer the suggestion in placeof the one offered by our Board, allowing the Boardof Foreign Missions to go ahead now and appointtheir man and to send him out to Japan next yearif the church raises its full budget and five thousanddollars additional by March 31, 1955.I said in support of my motion, and I do nothesitate to repeat it here, that the CovenanterChurch CAN raise this full amount if it will. Ofcourse Dr. McCarroll is right when he says that onthe basis of past performance the likelihoodof our Church raising $116,000 by March 31, 1955is remote.What This Goal Means to Our Faithful GiversAlthough Dr. Taggart has dismissed the oldformula of dividing the budget by the total membership as an impractical solution of the church's financial problem, the device has its educational andpropaganda value. We sometimes hear it said thatthe whole financial burden of the Covenanter Churchis carried by about 2,000 adult members who do thebulk of all the giving, in the local congregation andto Synod's Budget. I am not aware of the factualbasis for this assumption, but we may accept for sakeof illustration its general truth.If this is true, there is something ungracious inapplying added pressure on these faithful donors.Farmers do not like to "whip a willing horse." Ifpeople are now doing all they can to keep a struggling340congregation going, it is not fair to shout at them,as Pharaoh did to the children of Israel; "Ye areidle, ye are idle." Paul the Apostle stressed the important need for fairness in church giving when hewrote to the Corinthians, "For if there be first awilling mind, it is accepted according to that a manhath, and not according to that he hath not. For Imean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened;but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that theirabundance also may be a supply for your want : thatthere may be equality: as it is written, He that hadgathered much had nothing over, and he that hadgathered little had no lack."Now, for sake of mental exercise only, take the2,000 who are supposed to carry the major part ofour denomination's load in giving and see whatwould be required of these willing givers (in additionto what they are already giving) if the big sum of$116,000 is to be raised by March 31. We find thatthese 2,000 faithful givers would need to give a totalof $58 each, which, broken down to months andweeks, would be $14.50 a month per person or $3.63per week per person. When we assume that these2,000 are already giving to their limit, the arbitraryload of $3.63 more per week for 12 whole monthsmight seem heavy.Dr. Taggart's impatience with this old numericalaverages formula is a practical one. In actual lifehuman beings do not give as these beautiful averagesseem to promise. But the truth cannot be deniedthat if the Covenanter church did give perfectlyaccording to these mythical divisions, the budgetwould be adequately raised. So the indications pointto the fact that our annual shortage is not the lackof means to raise our needed 'budget, but that thefault lies rather with those of our membership whodo not give generously to the Lord.While I do not believe in debts, think what mighthappen if 2,000 members of the Covenanter Churchsimultaneously borrowed $60 each and sent it intoMr. Chester Fox the Treasurer this coming Christmas. That would put $120,000 on the line by the endof 1954, and the donors might not find it too difficultto pay off their sixty dollar debt in a few moremonths.I do not recommend that plan at all, but is thisnot what many Covenanters are doing today? Payments on a new car or on the home, or even on deepfreeze or new refrigerator or washer go in far moreheavily than $60. Why not do this much for theLord?Or to approach the problem from still anotherangle. In a short time Christmas is coming. Will2,000 members of the Covenanter Church spend asmuch as $50 each at Christmas? Christmas cards,postage, gifts, wrappings, candy and a big groceryorder for the holidays surely will run the total up tofifty dollars in a hurry. I think the total of special,unnecessary, even wasteful expenditures in an average Covenanter home will reach much more thanthis. Say, however, that 2,000 Covenanters spend$50 each and that would be a "throwon our-COVENANTER WITNESS